As far as overplaying them, it's possible to overplay any fish, but as a general rule fish from the minnow family (especially the larger ones - Carp, Fallfish, Chubs, etc) are pretty tough. If you're concerned about overplaying a bigger one, just switch to bigger tippet. Tie on some 10-12 lb mono or something like that instead of the 4x...that should give you some extra muscle/confidence in the line to land them a little quicker.

If I switched to 12lb, I think my 5wt rod is breaking before the line does. I would fish a 3x-2x, but I have read that carp are super leader shy, so I assumed to go as thin as possible.

Trevor, I fooled him with a crayfish imitation that I dead drifted. Somehow the fly came completely unraveled during the fight, but atleast the hook endured(thats what I get for ordering off internet sites). I was originally landing beautiful presentations on some tailing carp about 35' away and slightly upstream, when I noticed a silt cloud about 15' away and slightly downstream. I knew I was embracing my inner ninja, but I didnt think a fish would swim that close to me. I gathered my line in and casted about 6' ahead of the fish to allow my fly to sink and he saw it right away and went for it. The water was crystal clear so I got to see the whole thing pretty clearly. I think I was fishing for 3-5 minutes until I hooked up with the fish, so a pretty rewarding trip.

After I landed this fish, I couldnt see another carp along the stream, so I got out and drove 3 minutes to another stretch of stream I prefer for smallmouth. Has anyone stayed to see how long it takes a spooked carp to return to feeding etc.?

Just from my self-education, it is certainly possible to catch a carp in the dead of winter. Probably not the easiest angling pursuit, but they do feed. I have read of several hardcore carp guys catching them in every month.

I have a koi pond(3,000 gallon so nothing huge) and they slow down when the water is below 55. I feed them very little each day when it is cool like this, but they are eating.

Have a guy come up last Feb. and wanted to fish only thing open was marsh creek where the fed. fish station runs water into marsh. they tapped a glacial lake 10'000 feet down and runs a constant temp. water never freezes where it flows..he hooked a carp on a crayfish pattern that ran up stream under the ice and cut his leader. I see em daisy chaining and feeding there all time..

Like any warm water species, their metabolism slows so they aren't as active and the fight they put up when hooked is significantly less "spirited". You can catch them but it's more difficult and I prefer to chase other species through the winter and return to carp around April.

We do a lot of carp fishing in Montana. I wasn't into it when I lived in PA and would catch them from time to time by accident, but now I'm hooked. Our carp fishing is all site fishing which is a blast. We even get some great carp fishing on dry flies when the fish move into big eddies to slurp insects off of the surface. Carp also love crayfish and sculpins so we use a lot of crayfish flies or bonefish patterns that sink fast. The idea is to cast upstream of the fish and let it drift down and then strip it like a bonefish retrieve. You can check out an article on fly fishing in Montana for carp which isn't really unique to just Montana.

Also: here is a link to a you tube trailer for a carp fishing show that we did with Trout TV that will air in February. One of our head guides, Sean Blaine is the guide: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPRQb9EQqKY

I still make it back to PA from time to time so I'll have to find some new carp honey holes back home for my next visit!

If anyone is interested in carp flies I've got a few up on my site which is in large part dedicated to Carp Flies.I can get you what you want on the best hooks, with weed guards. if you don't see what your looking for, shoot me an e-mail...I aim to please. I highly recommend crayfish patterns, Black Ops, and various other leeches, buggers, and nymphs.

Yeah, all the "carp crack" like flies can be dominate. I have done best on inverted hook patterns like the crazy charlie, gotcha, carp crack etc. I have no idea what it is about these flies that makes a carp attack them, but it is a curious thing to watch carp dart at them. My favorite fly of the summer was a size 10 charlie in tan. It just looked like a ball of hair, but carp nailed it. I had a carp take 2 weeks ago when we had that weekend in the 50s. I totally botched the hook set though. I was really thinking sunday was going to have some possibilities, but this weather put an end to that.

Anybody have any carp ties for small wild grapes? The stream I fish has several patches of wild grapes and I have seen carp pile up around these vines to whack any fruit that falls. I noticed this twice while fishing for smallmouth(before I decided to give carp a go) and never went back to these spots to try for the carp. Do they make a purple mcflyfoam or globug yarn? I figure I could do a globug immitation over a tungsten bead so the thing sinks like a grape.

I never understood why fly fishing for carp hasn't picked up here on the upper allegheny. It's alot like fishing for red fish and they are smart! They are not the dumb brutes they are made out to be. I fish for them alot during the summer and man is it fun.

I gave a few crayfish paterns to a guy I work with to test on small mouth. They ended up catching 15 carp on the things. This one was a mammoth and weighed 35# and broke the guys 8 weight fly rod. Flies were just dead drifted past carp they had seen. The carp would just swim over and suck up the fly. I still have yet to land one yet unforunatly.

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Posted on: 2012/12/28 14:06

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